Are young QBs ready to take over?

January 12, 2014

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Those quarterbacks are still evolving. They're still learning. They're still growing with their teams. These things take time. Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan told me before this season, his sixth, started that he finally felt like he had a comprehensive grasp on all of the intricacies that playing quarterback entails. He is not unique. It typically takes that long.

There are plenty of teams that should be looking at quarterbacks in the upcoming draft. Houston, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Oakland and Minnesota all will pick early in the first round. It remains to be seen what those teams and others think of Central Florida's Blake Bortles, Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel, Louisville's Teddy Bridgewater and Fresno State's Derek Carr.

But those teams should pay attention this weekend.

"This weekend, you'll really get a chance to see the different styles and what it takes for those different styles to be successful," said Louis Riddick, former director of pro personnel for Philadelphia and Washington and now an NFL analyst for ESPN.

"You get a chance to see whether or not your program and your system are set up for one quarterback over another. You get a chance to look at that this weekend if you're a team-builder. That's what I like about this weekend. They're both successful [styles]; it's what are the characteristics of your football team? What do you more closely resemble? Do you more closely resemble the Peyton Manning offense, or do you more closely resemble the Colin Kaepernick offense?

"So I would be very intrigued to watch it if I were building a team and trying to decide what kind of quarterback do I want to go with."

The old hats or generation next, that's what this divisional weekend will be about. The young ones are coming, but is their time now? We are about to find out.